Basin home prices up overall
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 hours, 32 minutes AGO
This Moses Lake home was listed for $420,000 Wednesday.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | October 2, 2026 3:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — Home prices were up across most of the Columbia Basin in August, the latest month for which information was available, compared to a year earlier, according to data from the real estate website Redfin.
The median price of a home in Quincy was $406,658 in August 2026, an increase of 11.3% from August 2026. Ephrata saw an increase of 13.8% to $369,755, and Moses Lake posted a modest increase of 3.1% to $362,760. Othello’s median home price, however, was down 27.2% year-over-year, finishing at $256,200 in August 2026.
The largest increase in Grant County came in the western part of the county, which includes Desert Aire, Mattawa, Quincy, George and Crescent Bar, according to data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. That region’s median home price leapt from $399,000 to $552,000, a jump of 38.35%. The area northwest of Moses Lake, including the Larson Community, Big Bend Community College and the Port of Moses Lake, also saw an increase in home prices, jumping 25.89% from $297,340 to $374,323. Homes in northern Grant County, from state Route 28 to the Grand Coulee Dam, dropped in price by 18.18% to $270,000, according to NWMLS.
Seven homes were sold in Othello in August 2026, a 48.7% decrease from August 2025, according to Redfin’s data. Ephrata home sales were down year-over-year by 6%, and in Quincy by 16.1%. Moses Lake home sales remained virtually unchanged, dropping a mere 0.71%.
Grant County’s sales were highest in the western part of the county, with 17 closed sales in August 2026, but that still represents a 19.05% decrease from a year earlier when 21 homes were sold in that area.
Months of inventory, or the amount of time it would take to sell all properties on the market, were up almost 10% in Grant County between August 2025 and August 2026, according to the NWMLS data. Adams County had 8.3 months of inventory compared to 5.4 a year earlier, except for the Othello area, which had seven months’ worth of inventory.
The average 30-year fixed-mortgage interest rate reached its highest point of the year so far, at 7.03% on Sept. 24, according to Freddie Mac. A year ago at this time the rate was 6.30%.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Ephrata man arrested near Quincy
QUINCY — An Ephrata man was booked into the Grant County Jail Wednesday on suspicion of second-degree burglary and resisting arrest after being sought for alleged burglaries and other offenses committed in the Ephrata and Coulee Dam areas. Cody Miller, 34, was also booked for attempting to elude law enforcement and two Grant County District Court warrants, said Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, in a media release. “They’ve been looking for him for a bit,” Foreman said in a separate interview. Miller ran from Quincy Police Department officers Wednesday morning, Foreman said.
Basin home prices up overall
MOSES LAKE — Home prices were up across most of the Columbia Basin in August, the latest month for which information was available, compared to a year earlier, according to data from the real estate website Redfin. The median price of a home in Quincy was $406,658 in August 2026, an increase of 11.3% from August 2026. Ephrata saw an increase of 13.8% to $369,755, and Moses Lake posted a modest increase of 3.1% to $362,760. Othello’s median home price, however, was down 27.2% year-over-year, finishing at $256,200 in August 2026.
Summit to explore cybersecurity at local level Wednesday
MOSES LAKE — The digital world is sometimes described as being like the Wild West, and like the American frontier of bygone days, it’s filled both with opportunities for a better life and dangers lurking in the dark corners. Avoiding those dangers will be the focus of a free summit at Big Bend Community College Wednesday. “Everybody’s affected by cybersecurity,” said David Mabee, marketing director for NCW Tech Alliance, which supports technology adoption and education in north central Washington. “It’s not just an IT issue; it’s an everyday issue, with all the different ways people are trying to get your information.”